List of Lame 2

The last time the List of Lame was here it focused on cartoon superheroes. This time I want it to focus on heroes that were played by real people. First up is one of my favorites. Automan was produced by Glen A. Larson in an attempt to bring Tron to TV. But in this case it had a computer generated hero trapped in the real world. It stared Chuck Wagner as Automan and, in his return to series televison, Desi Arnez Jr. as Walter Nebicher the police officer and computer programmer who created him. There was even some kid friendly being around known as Cursor. It was a flying computer star that was Automan's friend/pet that helped him out. Now why do I think this was lame if I liked the show. Automan took up so much electricty that he could only exist at night when most of the city was asleep. So what was he to do if a crime had to be solved in the daytime? I guess Walter would be on his own in that case.

Now here is a show that I had high hopes for. M.A.N.T.I.S. was produced by Sam Raimi and developed by Sam Hamm in 1994 for Fox TV. Carl Lumbly stars as Dr. Miles Hawkins who was shot in the spine during a riot. As a result he was paralyzed from the waist down. The Dr. was wealthy and owned a scientific company that he used to make him an exo-skeleton. It helped him walk and gave him superpowers. The series was called M.A.N.T.I.S. as it stood for Mechanically Augmented Neuro Transmitter Interception System. The pilot was pretty good but some characters changed when it went to series. Due to poor ratings they retooled it and the series got worse. Sometimes good ideas go bad.

In 1985 ABC wanted a show to cash in on the audience that watched the mega hit show Knight Rider on NBC. They thought that they had it with Streethawk. The show starred singer/actor Rex Smith as Jesse Mach. He was a police officer who was put to work as a public relations officer. He was chosen to be in a top secret government project. He was to be the driver of motorcycle capable of many wonderful things. It's biggest asset is that it could do speeds of over 300 mph so it could arrive at crimes as fast as possible.
Now this show wasn't the greatest but it was pretty good. But here is what I think made the show lame. Jesse wasn't in control of the motorcycle.
That's right he was pretty much just along for the ride. Engineer Norman Tuttle, played by Joe Regalbuto, was at a computer and he ran the cycle from afar. So you have a guy on a motorcyle going 300 mph while in hot pursuit of some crooks. Suddenly an innocent bystander gets in front of him. What's can he do? Just what he did when it did happen in one episode. Try to miss them and then hit something else. They lost me a little bit with that one. From that moment on I knew this show wouldn't last. It was sad to see it go as it was fun to watch but pretty lame with him hafing limited control of the cycle.

Next is the TV series Misfits of Science. NBC aired 15 of the 16 episodes. It was about a group of superpowered people lead by young Dr. Billy Hayes, played by Dean Paul Martin, who has no powers. One man, Dr. Elvin Lincoln, was 7 feet tall but could shrink to 11 inches. Johnny B was a rock and roll musician who could shoot lightening bolts from his hands and had to wear sunglasses because his eyes glowed with power. Gloria, played by Courtney Cox, has telekinetic powers.
Arnold "Ice Man" Beifneiter was put in a cryogenic sleep in 1937. He wakes up in the 80's with the power to freeze anything that he touches. If he gets too warm he will die so they had to drive around in an ice cream truck. Fear of Marvel Comics suing them over the Ice Man character had him disappear after the pilot episode but they still drove around in the truck.In those early days of computer effects it was still hard to show how they used their powers, espically Gloria's. How do you show someone useing mental powers. Gloria would put her hands to her head and we would briefly see the film go negative and then back to regular. Not a good look on a major network TV series. Perhaps this series would look better now then it did when it premiered back in 1985. I saw the pilot and didn't bother with the rest of the series.